I watched some of Theresa May's Lord Mayor's banquet speech last night. It was dire. She hinted that it may go somewhere useful:
Liberalism and globalisation have delivered unprecedented levels of wealth and opportunity. They have lifted millions out of poverty around the world. They have brought nations closer together, broken down barriers and improved standards of living and consumer choice. And they underpin the rules-based international system that is key to global prosperity and security and which I am clear we must protect and seek to strengthen.
But we can't deny — as I know you recognise — that there have been downsides to globalisation in recent years, and that — in our zeal and enthusiasm to promote this agenda as the answer to all our ills — we have on occasion overlooked the impact on those closer to home who see these forces in a different light.
And continued:
[T]here is no contradiction between embracing globalisation, and saying it has to be managed to work for everyone.
But then said:
So our new modern industrial strategy will back the strengths of every area: their great universities; their clusters of dynamic businesses; their fast growing start-ups, so that all parts of our country and all parts of our society see the benefits of growth.
This won't be about propping up failing industries or picking winners — that is the job of competition and free markets. It will be about getting Britain firing on all cylinders again by creating the conditions where winners can emerge and grow, across all sectors, in all parts of the country and for the benefit of all.
Or to put it another way: not only will the winners from competition be supported, but the state will ensure that they are the sole focus of attention.
As if to ensure that the point was not missed:
And, as I have said, through our industrial strategy we will pro-actively support the industries of the future, as well as those like financial services, where we already have a world leading competitive advantage.
In other words, she seeks to challenge the problems of globalisation by reinforcing all the characteristics, concentrations of power and economic imbalances that have created so many problems.
She tried to suggest there was a soft edge though:
But in return, it is right to ask business to play its part in ensuring we build a country that works for everyone.
I thought this may be the moment when something interesting may be said. It was. It was this:
And again it is Britain — and specifically many of you here in this room tonight — who can lead the way in the world.
The great history of our livery companies stems from the fundamental principle that business is not just there to benefit business itself, but also to advance the common good.
Since the 12th century, the guilds and livery companies have not only promoted trade and business, but also training and skills, research and innovation. They led by example, developing the simplest and best form of corporate governance there has ever been: “my word is my bond”.
They built almshouses for members in sickness and old age, and continue to take a lead in broader charitable programmes - giving over £48 million to charitable causes last year alone.
How different their ethos is from that small minority who believe they can operate by a different set of rules, and who recklessly damage the entire business community in the process.
Together we can forge a modern version of the responsible approach to business that has been championed by our livery companies for generations.
The core of her belief was now on display. We know where we stand. The Guilds were about enforcing monopoly power to make super normal profit in defiance of the outcomes markets would otherwise deliver.
They were not about competition, but its suppression.
They were not about providing opportunity, but instead ensured that access was restricted to a chosen few.
And they was about reinforcing the hierarchy of society.
With a touch of trickle down economics to salve consciences attached.
And this is what Theresa May wants. Her answer to neoliberalism is quite explicitly neo-feudalism. The 19th century model of free trade was, in fact, abandoned last night in favour of the economy of the middle ages, based in an era when there really was the Royal prerogative she so craves; a democracy that had no power to constrain the executive and a social hierarchy that treated most in the country as serfs.
This is not a vision for the twenty first century. But this, apparently, is post Brexit Britain.
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You write that she ‘carves’ Royal prerogative. I don’t think that that is a wrong turn of phrase at all and in fact is probably the right word to use!!
Her and her party will be carving a lot of things up in the next 4 years that’s for sure.
Let’ see what happens to the NHS and a closer unity with Trump’s US for starters.
True
But I have corrected it
May(hem) seeks a return to the values of the 12th Century as it was then that her party had relevance. In the modern world, much-changed, it has relevance no longer, as witnessed by the increasingly obvious split within its ranks. Deeply significant, I think, that even John Redwood has made it plain he no longer wishes to be associated with what’s being done to disabled people. As a party, then, the reasons for its existence are long gone. I doubt it will be long before the party itself is gone. Tick tock 🙂
When anyone brings up the 12th century or even Adam Smith I always ask how what was the life expectancy back then, what was child mortality, where people protected from famine or invasion, did they have a warm dry home.
The idea that the advance of state makes life worse is proved wrong by history. Like all human constructs it has its problems, and needs to reform and evolve, but still it is the cornerstone that has enabled the great advance of human civilisation. Everyone knows this and I think people want more state, meaning more NHS, better security, better industrial strategy, not less.
Quite so
I’m betraying how many years I’ve been reading your blog when I say that it seems an age ago now when we first started using the term neofeudalism on this blog, Richard. Indeed, at one point after a very good exchange of comments on the subject – and a particularly forensic and insightful contribution from Andrew Dickie – I seriously considered submitting a proposal for a book on the subject. But then presure of other work and the economic and political agenda moved on to other subjects and neofeudalism slipped below the surface of attention. But here it is, explictily stated this time: a 21st century variant of feudalism being actively promoted by our most senior politician. So, this is where Brexit takes us. Lacking a plan (as a leaked noted now show) this is May’s blueprint for the future.
Also worth noting her starry eyed comments on globalistion on the one hand with her attempts to blame this for the economic woes that seem to have driven the revolt of certain sectors of the electorate that we’ve seen with Brexit and Trumpism. Unfortunately for May there are more thoughtful people in the world who easily nail the falsity of blaming gloabilisation for all the ills we now see around us. A superb example of which is Aditya Chakrabortty in today’s Guardian.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/15/rust-belt-middle-class-wiped-out
Not of course that May or any Tory would take time to read such an accurate analysis as it seriously undermines their world view and makes clear that there are in fact many, many, policy options open to them (which they can deny as long as they can blame everything on globalisation) but which they choose to ignore for entirely ideological reasons. But anyway, we now know that in the UK neoliberalism is officially acknowledged as dead and the new battle cry of the right is LONG LIVE NEOFEUDALISM.
I read your comment waiting to give evidence in parliament
What you have to say is more pertinent than anything likely to be said here this morning
And the same can be said of Aditya
This is a deeply worrying development, making explicit, as you note, something we have discussed for some years
@Ivan, I just spent the weekend at a national Green Party conference. We largely avoided the “Trump” word, however what analysis I heard was not as insightful as Aditya Chakrabortty. BBC World Service this morning blurted out the US working class demise arguments and relief might be on its way. Sorry the middle class is being hollowed out, both of us know many a civil servant and the impossible [and changing] targets culture – sorry silly me its only an organisation being “ambitious”. I have to add, ambitious to get where – at the top of some artificial league table. Providing good service no longer matters, only metrics and cash counts. This blog has raised that the future must be more about local than global, and politics must be about building communities and relationships, not competing like crazy against each other.
Regarding your last points, Tony_B, that’s why I thought Aditya’s reference to Engel’s work was spot on.
‘Strip away professional protections and you unleash what, 170 years ago, Engels called “the battle of all against all”. In The Condition of the Working Class in England, he wrote of how “a battle for life, for existence, for everything, is fought not between the different classes of society only, but also between the individual members of these classes. The power-loom weaver is in competition with the hand-loom weaver, the unemployed or ill-paid hand-loom weaver with him who has work or is better paid, each trying to supplant the other.” I think we’re already there, except this time you can substitute the weavers for the Uber drivers, the hourly paid university lecturers, even the freelance journalists. Then paint in impossible house prices and rising fuel costs. And remember that behind Engels’s characterisation was another wealthy elite.’
It feels horribly prescient
Thanks for the post & the link. As regards May’s angle that it was all the fault of an abstract phenomenon & not of conscious decisions taken by her party, it reminds me of a brilliant image created by Sean Locke. During the investigations into phone tapping & bribery of public officials by the News of the World, he commented on protestations of ignorance & innocence by Brookes & Murdoch. He said it was like a butcher holding up a leg of lamb & saying ‘What? Someone killed a sheep? Really?’
@Mike W. Thanks. I’d never heard the Sean Locke comment. Brilliant!
I liked it too
Ah yes, the 12th century. Let’s try this for size: 1170, Blois, 30 Jews were burned publicly, this proving to be extremely profitable for the rulers of Blois, who appropriated loans from the Jews who were killed. Or this: March 1190, the entire Jewish community of York — about 150 people — barricaded themselves inside the castle as antisemitic riots raged outside. Faced with death at the hands of the marauders or forced baptism, most of the Jews inside the castle chose suicide.
May-hem would not support such actions – but clearly society then – including the guilds which she sees as role models now – did. I regard them (the “liveried companies”) as one of the elements that makes the UK an increasingly quaint tourist attraction, amusing whilst also (industrially & commercially) irrelevant – which is what May-hem will become if her speech is indicative of Tory (commercial/industrial) policy.
& with respect to the Guardian article – apologies for repetition but – Skidelsky said something very similar – very recently – same publication.
Please don’t let facts get in the way
Do you want to be treated like an expert?
Richard Thanks. Your comment re Mike Parr being treated as an expert made me laugh for the first tome in days it seems.
Glad to be of service
And incidentally, university debt creates a new breed of neo-guild trained serfs, who pay high for the chance of entry to higher-level employment, but often without gaining the solid and under-supplied skills that would guarantee a decent income. Some will be winners in this deperate gamble, many will be losers.
There are already universities that, as a whole, add nothing to the earning prospects of their students as a result of their three year’s study
Now I am not saying earnings are everything, but that’s a lot of debt for no return and all to keep unemployment stats under control
In the US, total student debt @ $1.2 trillion now exceeds credit card debt @ $703 billion (2015 stats). In the UK it’s heading in the same direction with student debt up 17% @ £86.2bn, while outstanding consumer credit lending is @ £188.7bn (Sept 2016). According to the Sutton Trust ‘UK graduates leave university with more debt than US peers’. Is this economic madness, or what?
It’s enslavement
Apologies to the cognoscenti for any statistical inaccuracies re uk debt – as usual, posted in a rush. Whatever the actual numbers, they’re way too high and heading in the wrong direction.
Student debt here in the UK appears to be unenforceable http://www.independent.co.uk/student/study-abroad/news/student-finance-loans-brexit-article-50-illegal-and-unenforceable-says-top-lawyer-a7410261.html and ask any self-styled “Freeman on the Land” (or me) for confirmation that much of what’s described as credit card “debt” is unenforceable in any court of law too. My own feeling is a better educated people, by and large, simply wouldn’t put up with this “debt” nonsense in the first place.
For all the well articulated reasons over the past decade by perceptive commentators (RM included), progressive economists, sociologists, historians et al. it appears that western society is in a process of trend reversal from the general social-democratic consensus to a more authoritarian, reactionary model. The main driving force for this at grass-roots level is fear – both imagined and real.
It is unlikely there will be any major violent revolution but a general, pernicious drift away from the centre-ground of politics to an ever more extreme right. The momentous challenge for progressives is to reverese this trend which is no easy task, especially since the broader ‘left’ finds it so difficult to coalesce under a mutually acceptable manifesto.
So, to Bill Kruse (above) I’d say brace yourself for worse to come. The Tory Party isn’t going to implode any time soon. Conservatives are more pragmatic than progressives and their ever-changing simplistic messages resonate more clearly with the increasingly dissatisfied elements in society. Additionally they own the mass media for which ‘fear’ has always been a stimulant. However, the fact that Clinton won the popular vote and Republicans only represent a little over one quarter of Americans eligible to vote indicates the potential for progressive change. I haven’t checked the exact numbers for the UK but I believe the Conservatives won only 24.3 per cent of all registered voters to gain their majority. This surely proves that the voice of the Right is louder and clearer than that of the Left.
A few days ago Richard used the word ‘endarkenment’ which I really like and have circulated among friends. It’s no fun being a prophet of doom but I seriously believe the west is heading in that direction, with the tacit approval of an expanding electorate largely ignorant of where their choice ultimately leads. Theresa May might look like (and be promoted as) the soft edge of this movement, but I believe her political DNA is well to the right of David Cameron’s. It is therefore no surprise that she would be extolling the virtues of 12th century City institutions.
Left-leaning progressives of all persuasions across Europe – Greens, Trade Unionists, Social Democrats, Socialists – need to unite in the most basic way to fight this regressive trend. OK, that’s probably too much to ask. However there are fundamental and crucial lessons for us to learn from what has just happened in the USA. If these lessons cannot be translated into a manifesto of HOPE that can be understood and believed by the voting public at large then I’m afraid to say much of the progress that’s been made in preceding generations will be at risk. There is no simple answer to these globally-induced problems. But complacency must give way to activism, at all levels of society. Although a beneficiary of the post WW2 consensus, I just wish I was much, much younger to be more effective at this moment in history.
My fear is the left is too stupidly partisan to fight this
My fear is that the left is too stupidly partisan to stop this
Worth saying twice, Richard -the failure of the Left has been enormous and calamitous as we now see.
I cannot see any effective left emerging out of this, there simply isn’t a coherent narrative and no real understanding of how the monetary system works and can work for socila purpose.
I despair when I read what McDonell has been saying:
“In the speech, Mr McDonnell also underlined Labour’s commitment to fiscal discipline if it wins power, saying there is “nothing ‘progressive’ about running up big deficits.”
he should be saying the opposite: ‘there IS something progressive about deficits when they are needed.’
I’m psychologically working on a sort of ‘post-hope’ scenario to keep myself going.
Time to reach for the Krishnamurti again:www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KhKULa5ns0
McDonnell just does not seem to understand
Terrific argument from Aditya that aligns very well with yours, Richard. It’s a great shame that, as with almost all “sensitive” issues, the Guardian has not opened this article to comments; but then that’s become commonplace.
The tragedy is the point Aditya makes about the middle classes being next in line for the chop was every bit as clear before the 2010 election and has had a free run for six years – thanks to the timidity/collusion of Labour – at using deceitful propaganda to create ever more divisions in our society and leaving those divisions to fester to the point where a multitude of tribes react to their fears by turning on other tribes but can’t see that, when that “other” tribe has been crushed by cruel misinformation, their own tribe must inevitably become a target.
But how to communicate that fact is a huge challenge in the face of media owned in the main by the class that benefits most from mendacious and/or incompetent leaders.
I find it impossible to believe that where we find ourselves now is the result of anything other than a conspiracy, where our leaders have chosen to traded the pro .
Perhaps naively, I’m greatly saddened that we seem to have such a paucity of political representatives with either the moral code or open
Approaching retirement, I’m ashamed that, as a society, we’ve fallen so low. I’m also terrified of what the future might hold for my children.
I will be working for your children, mine, and all their friends for as long as I have breath, I hope
I have absolute confidence that you will do what you say, Richard. Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Whereas, to use Nick Faldo’s words, I thank our politicians, as a class, “from the heart of my bottom”.
Thanks